Wedding Date on May 18, 2018

Oh, if this isn't a tale of fate, I'm not sure what is! Chris and Rachel both grew up in Nashville and knew each other for a long time. When Chris's brother bought a farm close to where Rachel lived, they started going to Rachel's parents church. This was 14 years ago. They remained friends but life took them in separate directions. Rachel went back to nursing school and Chris settled down with what they like to call his "practice wife". We remained friends, but our lives were headed in different directions for a while. I went back to school for a degree in nursing, and did a bit of traveling, and he settled down with his "Practice Wife." Haha. Fast forward a lot of years. London has always been a huge love of Rachels, and she was lucky enough to get a lottery entry into the 2015 London Marathon. So she began training for that race, and also rearranging her life so she could live in London for 6 months after the race, to see if she liked it enough to pursue going after a visa and trying to be able to live there part time. Meanwhile, Chris's marriage was coming to a close, unbeknownst to Rachel. After the marathon, Rachel made it my job to integrate a much as possible into London life. She was living in a flat in leafy North London, a block away from the gorgeous, sprawling park called Hampstead Heath. She made friends, found a church there, went to a bunch of meet ups, and fired up her online dating profile :) At the end of the summer, she ended up meeting a lovely Englishman named Dan, and they totally hit it off. Things accelerated quickly, and they soon started discussing marriage and Rachel moving to England permanently and becoming a British citizen. Rachel was set to go home in September for her cousin's wedding and a work convention, but when she returned to England, it was to a flat on Dan's street in West London, and she was expecting to be engaged by Christmas. Well, two days after she moved back to London, and just down the street from him, Dan dumped her, on account of Rachel being "too American," whatever that means! Chris, meanwhile, had split up with his wife, and was on a bit of an overseas sojourn that took him from Slovakia to Wales. He crossed the border into to England to source some parts for his 1960 Land Rover that he was restoring (which plays a huge part in their wedding day!). And he sent Rachel a message, 24 hours after Dan had dumped her, letting her know he was in the country, and he would love to meet Dan and have a meal with them. Rachel told him she was recently heartbroken but that it would be great to see an old friend. So he traveled down to London from northern England and in between crying spells, she showed him "her" city and took him to her favorite places. After the weekend was over, he headed back up north for an apprenticeship with a renowned Land Rover transmission guy, but he would call and check up on me. About two weeks later, her best friend & friends husband came for a visit, and since Chris was still in the country, he decided to join them on an epic road trip through England and Scotland and Wales. The four of them had a blast together, and made a ton of memories they will treasure forever. After they left, Chris decided to stay for the remainder of Rachel's time there. They weren't a couple yet. Just two good friends who had recently been through loss. They first realized they had feelings for one another towards the end of their time there. They didn't technically have a first date, but Rachel can remember going to the Natural History Museum one day, and after visiting the museum, ice skating at the out door ice rink (since there is no Thanksgiving in England, the ice rinks and Christmas trees and Christmas lights and decorations go up earlier over there, and it is magical), they held hands so she wouldn't fall on the ice, and it made her heart race. There was another evening, they were walking along the Southbank, headed towards Tower Bridge, and they were walking through a tunnel, and there was this young guy, with bright red hair, and old fashioned suspenders and a ukelele and he was playing songs. They stopped to listen to him, and he started to play Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" and they began to dance to it. There wasn't anyone else in the tunnel except for the three of them, and it was such a sweet moment in time. The 1960 Land Rover that brought Chris to England in search of parts will be at the wedding, as a little symbol of their relationship, assuming he can rebuilt the engine in time! *** From Jay & Kaila: When we heard this story we immediately knew that we HAD to have footage from London to symbolize this magical work of the universe. Rachel and Chris wanted their wedding day to be predominately shot on Super8 film, so our thought was to find someone in London that could shoot Super8 of all the places that are important to them. We did this as a surprise, and it was SO hard to keep it a secret! The end product ended up being one of our favorite films, EVER. Rachel and Chris were very surprised, to say the least!